22 July - Saturday

Porto Covo

COSTA NETO & JOÃO AFONSO (MOZAMBIQUE / PORTUGAL)

Porto Covo - Largo Marquês de Pombal

Both musicians were born in Mozambique. Life brought them to Portugal. João arrived in Portugal in 1978, at the age of 13, following the decolonisation of Mozambique. Today, he is one of the main Portuguese singer-songwriters, a reference in music with Portuguese and African roots since the 90s. Costa Neto was born in 1959, in the southernmost Mozambican building, the Ponta do Ouro lighthouse. Music was his vocation since early age. In 1997, a tour brings him to Portugal, where he decides to stay living. He is acknowledged as one of the musicians living in Europe that best represents Mozambique's music. This is a gig composed of two solos and a gathering between the two musicians.

GUSTAVITO & A BICICLETA (BRAZIL)

Porto Covo - Largo Marquês de Pombal

In the song "Quilombo Oriental", Gandhi and the Hindu god Krishna left India and are coming to Brazil to join a Candomblé ritual in a terreiro. This story makes all the sense in the Brazilian religious syncretism. In this case, it belongs to a tribute album to “Pena de Pavão de Krishna", a carnival block from Belo Horizonte that blends imaginative influences from India with Ijexá Afro-Brazilian rhythms. Gustavito is the musician who pays the tribute, a member of said block and one of the main singers of the independent music scene from Belo Horizonte. An inviting and dancing MPB (Brazilian Popular Music), to which Bicicleta band - and particularly, the female vocal trio - lends a special vibration.

WALDEMAR BASTOS (ANGOLA)

Porto Covo - Largo Marquês de Pombal

A career that spans 35 years. Thirty-five years of journeys between the Atlantic shores. Waldemar Bastos is Angolan, but Brazil, Cape Verde, Portugal and Latin America are the musical territories where he also feels like a citizen. These territories are in his concert and new album, to be released this year. An acoustic project, in which the guitar is the main player. An electrical project as well - because one can be spiritual while dancing. Waldemar Bastos was born in M'Banza Congo, worked with David Byrne in New York and made the music from Angola reach audiences untouched by it. He is ambassador of a country, where music, as he proudly says, is «as worthy as bread».

MABANG (GUANGXI - CHINA)

Porto Covo - Largo Marquês de Pombal

Cloud-surrounded mountains, forests where rain falls non-stop, picture-perfect waterfalls, vast rice fields. This is Guangxi, a region in southwest China, near Vietnam, where Mabang band comes from. Formed in 2010, it brings together four musicians who play a mix of Western and traditional instruments - some of them very rare. Ye Honggang is the composer, the voice, the guitarist and one of the flautists. He sings in local Chinese dialect, Guiliuhua. A Fei is the one who plays wind instruments, Fan Feng the percussionist and Xiao Dao the drummer. The band’s sound is sensual like Guangxi’s landscape – folk-rock with the warmth of reggae and ska.